


break

by zangari



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 22:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16921689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zangari/pseuds/zangari
Summary: Mako doesn’t watch, though. He doesn’t follow. He lays back, noticing the water marks on the ceiling. If the letter is the truth behind his memory, he supposes it doesn’t make a difference what Bolin reads. After all, his brother was there when it happened. He saw the reason behind the letter. And yet, all these years later, Mako carries it with him. Like the memory, some part of him must have known it would resurface. (Or: Mako's recollection of the past is hazy but the haziness made a big impact on his life dot txt.)





	break

i.

 

Home from school with his lip split open, dried up blood and apologies scrubbed clean by a wet dishrag, Mako couldn’t look at his mother. As the faucet stopped, the kitchen suddenly too quiet for his weeping, he struggled to keep the story to himself. At the periphery, his little brother’s eyes – just eyes, round and waiting – peeked in from the living room. Mako watched back, face blank. Not a word. No signal. Bolin retreated quietly, almost certainly to an explosion of scrap paper and crayons, willed into the secret-keeping once again.

Mako did try to lie. He remembers her hand on the back of his neck leading him gently – sternly, at the same time – to his bed; remembers counting the creaks under their feet, and haphazard words bubbling to the surface between them. He only tripped on the stoop, but no one pushed him. He just wasn’t looking. His shoe was untied and he forgot how to tie it, and, see? It was his fault. He’ll be more careful. He sealed it with an empty promise, tracing the familiar patterns of his quilt with anxious fingertips. But at the thought of his brother, waiting and knowing; of his father, who freed the spiders that found their way inside; of his mother, here, missing work for him, securing the blanket around his shoulders, the confession came. It racked his chest, unweaving the tangles in his account at once. ‘Please don’t tell Dad.’

There was no avoiding her anymore. As his hands fell from his red face, her eyes were now level to his. He could see himself reflected in the amber. Her palms were pressed to his ears, warm and muffling. Her brows tented, her head tilted, and he knew she wasn’t cross. 

She was reminding him to breathe. 

He knew, too, she had guessed what had happened. He wanted to reach out, smooth the ever-deepening creases under a tired gaze. But she reached first, knuckles brushing tears away. ‘What shall I tell him?’

His eyes squeezed themselves shut again, cheeks hot as she guided his head to the pillow. Blurred, the shape of his mother nodded. She rose slowly, patting his arm before leaving him to his thoughts.

‘Mom–’ They spoke for him too quickly. At least this time it wouldn’t cost him their pride. Or his face. ‘I’m sorry I hurt Rui.’

Turning back, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe, she smiled. A small miracle. ‘I’ll call you for supper.’

 

 

 

ii.

 

‘What’s this?’

Between Bolin’s fingers, a sheet of paper folded a few times over. Mako knows the one – there’s only one – but he squints at it anyway. He shrugs. He forgot he’d packed that. 

Somehow, he always forgets packing it. 

‘It’s junk.’

Bolin doesn’t budge. He anchors himself in place. Lips pucker as he studies the yellowed edges and the curls of ink that had bled through, as if all this, and not the message, is the mystery. Mako, only half-focused on the sorting and unsorting of trinkets at this point, is only half-prepared to open this can of worms again. 

But here they sit on the floor of his new apartment. Two decades could be packed into five boxes. Tomorrow is an empty space. 

Quietly, just a breath, he laughs. ‘This is stupid.’ He doesn’t know which part, if any. Probably his own surprise. Or (maybe) feeling small as their voices echo off of blank walls and scuffed wood grain. Idle fingers follow a scratch in the board beneath his knee. ‘Look, it’s ancient history. Remember that kid Yori–’

‘Ah!’

‘–from the… I guess you do?’

‘Sure,’ he says, waving the question away. ‘He was cool.’ 

Mako waits. He listens to the white noise, the screeching-beeping-shouting of traffic, an elevator bell. Then Bolin is covering his mouth. 

‘There it is.’

‘I remember _that_ ,’ he says, lifting the paper triangle again. ‘He actually wrote to you about it?’

‘That’s what I’m guessing.’

Bolin sits up, pin straight. ‘Are you kidding?’

Mako shakes his head. 

‘You haven’t even opened it?’

Slower the second time, he shakes his head.

Knowing his brother, Bolin stands before the paper can be snatched away. He walks to the window, gingerly unfolding as the light turns him into a silhouette.

Mako doesn’t watch, though. He doesn’t follow. He lays back, noticing the water marks on the ceiling. If the letter is the truth behind his memory, he supposes it doesn’t make a difference what Bolin reads. After all, his brother was there when it happened. He saw the reason behind the letter.

And yet, all these years later, Mako carries it with him. Like the memory, some part of him must have known it would resurface. ‘I don’t wanna know, okay? Don’t tell me.’

The response is a delayed one. It’s a distracted one. He’s already back there.

 

 

 

iii.

 

Mako returned to his mother chasing Bolin around the table, the daily conflict over washing up. Papers strewn about, not a blank page in sight. The colors hadn’t even spared the newspaper, hiding his father’s face behind ink, polka dots, five-legged animals and clouds. He made his plate without being noticed.

‘Makoto.’ A loud kiss planted on his forehead, summoning him to the present. His father folded the paper and set it aside, smiling, then noticing, then trying to hang on to the smiling. By the chin, two fingers spun his attention back to her. ‘Is that enough food?’

‘Yep.’

‘There’s plenty here for seconds.’

‘I’m fine, thank you.’

‘Mako, did you win?’

All heads turned to Bolin, eager if not pleased with himself. He swung his legs beneath the table, one two one two, as his brother formulated a response. 

‘Ah,’ his father answered for him. Mako slunk into his seat. ‘I heard about your exciting day at school.’

Bolin, gulping down a mouthful, knocked at the tabletop with a curled fist. ‘Rui,’ he started, shifting eyes for Mako’s approval. It wasn’t given. ‘He said something bad about earthbenders, so Mako said he was gonna teach him a lesson.’ 

Mako’s hand shook as his spoon guided carrots around the edge of his plate. ‘That’s not what I said.’

‘It is too. Did you win?’

‘Does it look like I won?’

Their mother set her glass down, hard enough to send a tremor through the table. Mako kept his head down as she cleared her throat. He could picture her hands folding, eyes narrowed in warning. ‘Bolin,’ she said, too calmly for comfort. ‘Every fight comes with consequences. Your brother knows that now.’ 

He could feel it again, the heat rising to his head, in his throat. It clouded his vision. He pushed his plate away. 

His chair couldn’t be kicked from the table before his father had grabbed it by the arm, grounding him in his place; pulling him in. ‘He’ll use his words next time.’

 

 

 

iv.

 

Yori was tough. He was a machine. Yori’s favorite pastime was breaking noses. By thirteen, he had been busted for smuggling, but he only served two months. He electrocuted the guards. He dug himself to freedom with a teaspoon. He charmed his way out. People were careful around Yori. Look at him wrong and you’d wake up at the bottom of the harbor. Zolt called him Sunshine. Yori was a kiss-ass.

Mako liked him. 

Maybe it was because whenever Mako stood alone – waiting, every time, not to be – Yori would find him. Yori didn’t have a brother to stay up for. And he  _ was _ cool, with the cigarette dangling and the long hair slicked-back, colored by red heat and neon in the dark. 

Mako wasn’t alone too often. He could remember every day Yori stopped to talk with him; he could count the times on one hand. By now, he could see it coming. 

‘Where’s Junior?’

Mako smiled. ‘Lost him in the market,’ was the answer that night. Well– ‘Not lost. He’s spending all our money.’ In truth, he hated the waiting. His policy to meet back at headquarters only aggravated him in practice. He could still go back and find him, probably. If he was there. And if he couldn’t find him, then at least he’d know to worry. ‘But… Hey, how’s it going anyway?’

‘It’s going.’ Shoulder nudged, Mako looked to Yori, who gave his pack of smokes a shake.

‘Thanks.’

‘You know,’ he started, watching on as Mako fumbled with frozen fingers, struggling to force a light, ‘the Triad’s looking for lightningbenders. Boss has been training new recruits himself. If you’re any good, there’s a lot more money in it than the operation you got going now.’

‘Hm.’ It’s all he could manage. 

In the corner of his eye, Yori nodded, glow bobbing beneath his nose. ‘And even if you decided to leave, you’d be a lightningbender. People need those now.’

‘Yeah,’ he smirked, though he could feel the cold making his lip quiver. His words came out as a mumble.  ‘No one decides to leave.’ 

‘Don’t worry about that.’ Nudged again, the warmth lasting just a second longer. Just presence, reassuring. ‘Zolt’s a regular gopher bear, believe it or not.’ 

‘You know I don’t,’ he said, laughing, bleary-eyed. ‘I think he just likes _you_ , Sunny.’

‘Hey,’ he shrugged his shoulders. Kept them square, a hand stuffed into his coat pocket. ‘Whatever. You can think about it. We could use more guys like you around.’

Mako never guessed what that meant. The thought did stick with him, though, all through the night. Even through the ache in his stomach, through stolen bread. The ache that followed that. 

He carried the thought with him back to headquarters the next night, down the stairs and stopping halfway, his face buried into his scarf. He sat, hoping to remain hidden where the light of the hanging bulb couldn’t touch. He watched from the middle step as those kids lined up, their feet grounded into the red mats. Their heads followed Zolt as he paced. Mako listened from above. He waited for the moment someone would catch him, throw him to the wolves and make him prove what he would learn there. So he told himself he couldn’t forget any of it. He would practice where it was safe, wherever home would be.

Once, he must have walked out as a lightningbender. But how or when – for the life of him, that can’t be recalled. He knows when he first came to regret it, though. That was when he hurt Yori and–

‘Woah, woah – when did this happen?’

Mako rolls his head to look at his brother. The light, the question, makes his brow furrow. ‘You were there.’

‘I was there when he almost killed us, yeah.’ Bolin folds the paper and flings it, catching Mako’s shoulder. ‘Read it if you don’t believe me.’

He glances, but the letter stays where it fell. He closes his eyes. ‘That’s not how I remember it.’

‘Well, have you considered you’re remembering it wrong? Come on, bro. Yori was a bad lightningbender. Another gangster was giving him crap, he shot at him–’ Mako huffs in disbelief, but Bolin goes on, ‘Missed. Almost hit _me_ , ‘til you magically zapped it away.’

‘He had to quit the Triad after that.’

‘Yeah, because he was a bad lightningbender. I told you. The shot must have just backfired on him.’ Suddenly, Bolin is sitting beside him again. ‘You didn’t hit him. Believe me, I’d remember.’

‘I almost joined the Triad after that.’

‘Yeah, you almost–’ But he stops. Slowly, he leans from the periphery into Mako’s field of view. ‘This is… new information. You wanna elaborate?’

With a sigh, Mako sits up. Sitting up, he decides to stand. Walks to the kitchen. ‘We needed the money,’ he says. Bolin listens as a bottlecap is snapped. ‘Do you want anything?’

‘I want you to finish this story so I can go home.’

Mako returns shaking his head. He drags a rickety chair with him. ‘Whatever Zolt saw me do, he must have liked it. He came up and asked if I’d take Yori’s place.’

‘Oh.’

He lowers his drink. ‘I didn’t.’

‘How come?’

He shrugs. Because he saw what happened to his friend. Because he knows, at least, that he had run over to offer help. He couldn’t do anything about the burn. Because he saw what happened to his parents. His parents had always worried about his temper. Because he didn’t believe what Yori told him about Zolt. Because he had Bolin. ‘It didn’t sit right with me.’

‘Well,’ he says. What can be said? He smiles. ‘Thanks for that.’

He looks at his brother.

He looked at Yori. He held his face as he laid there. He couldn’t hear him apologizing. Mako was apologizing.

‘It’s late,’ he says. ‘Sorry for, uh– I mean everything worked out, so.’

Bolin nods. He extends his hand to shake. Mako feels the paper meet his palm.

‘Hey.’

‘Hm?’

‘Invest in a sofa, will you? Some real chairs?’

Mako wraps an arm around his shoulder, leading him to the door. ‘Yeah.’

‘You could fit a piano in by the window.’

He pats his back. ‘I’ll take care of it.’ The door shuts slowly on Bolin’s suggestions. In his pocket, he drags a thumb along the edge of his letter. He takes a breath.


End file.
